


Barrier/Ectoplasm

by Marsalias



Series: Dannymay 2019 [3]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Barrier, Gen, How did we get here?, ontological mystery, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24342880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsalias/pseuds/Marsalias
Summary: He looked up, rubbing his head. He was able to place where he was almost instantly. This was the outskirts of Amity Park, the side of the city that edged on into a forest. What he couldn't place, however, was the giant silvery-blue, translucent wall that rose up from the ground a few feet in front of him. He blinked at it, then glared, suddenly certain that it was the cause of his current set of bruises, and what he hoped was short-term memory loss. The problem was, what was it?
Series: Dannymay 2019 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757458
Comments: 7
Kudos: 165





	1. Chapter 1

"Mmf," said Danny. It felt early, and it was bright. His head hurt. He didn't like it, and he wanted to go back to sleep. "Uurrn." He stirred, cradling his head. His ears were ringing. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees. He wasn't on his bed. He was on the ground.

"What?" he muttered, letting his eyes open just a sliver. He saw grass and dirt, and... What was that?

He looked up, rubbing his head. He was able to place where he was almost instantly. This was the outskirts of Amity Park, the side of the city that edged on into a forest. What he couldn't place, however, was the giant silvery-blue, translucent wall that rose up from the ground a few feet in front of him. He blinked at it, then glared, suddenly certain that it was the cause of his current set of bruises, and what he hoped was short-term memory loss. The problem was, what was it?

Slowly, Danny inched forward, scooting across the ground. He went to prod the surface with a finger before realizing it was a probably a bad idea to touch it directly, at least at first. He found a twig, and used that instead. There was no give to the... whatever. Now that he was more awake, he knew it was probably some kind of ghost shield. Or human shield. Or whatever shield. It wasn't letting the twig pass through, but it wasn't harming it, either. After a moment's thought, he poked it with with his finger after all.

He could feel it vibrating against his skin. He barred his teeth. It felt... gross. Constrictive. Sticky and dirty, somehow.

He pulled his hand back, unsettled, and moved back. He tried to get to his feet, but unbalanced. That would be a concussion, then. What had he done, here, flown into the shield at high speed? He should probably call someone. He fumbled for his phone, an ancient brick that Tucker claimed was indestructible.

His mind, doing that weird thing that minds sometimes did, jumped to his parents, but that would be a terrible decision, for a number of reasons. Jazz would probably be best, even though she would scold him. She had a car. She _could_ come get him. Neither Tucker nor Sam even drove.

Unfortunately, the brick didn't get great reception outside of town. Right now it had exactly zero bars. He glared at it. What was even the point of having this thing, if it didn't work when he needed it?

The shield continued to buzz behind him. He could hear it now, and the sound made his skin crawl. It wasn't like, say, the background hum of some parts of the Ghost Zone, or of a power station. It was bad, somehow. Really, really bad, and the more Danny listened to it, the more he looked at it, the more he wanted to get away.

He struggled to his feet, swaying, head pounding. He had really hit his head hard this time. Also, being hungry and being nauseated was a bad combination. How long had he been unconscious for? He couldn't remember being out here, and usually he only got this far from home at night, or on a weekend. He considered dragging his phone back out to check, despite its other limitations it did have a clock and a calendar, but he needed both hands to balance right now, thank you very much.

A fringe benefit of half-dying in a horrible accident was that Danny always knew where home was. It was impossible for him to get lost, despite how dizzy he was, and how fuzzy his vision was. He just had to keep going home.

He walked, stumbled, really, in a zigzag pattern, bouncing between trees. Using first one, then another to support him. His hands went sticky with sap and bits of bark. He didn't like it, but it was better than being near that- that thing. The wall. The barrier. The shield. Whatever.

It reminded him of something, though. It was a lot like what the older Valerie had described when... he had been in the... bad future. Except that... He paused and looked up. The sky was grey and glimmering, just like the wall. No, like the dome. Maybe that was why Danny had thought it was early when he woke up, besides the fact that he was _waking up_.

But then his head decided that looking up was _way_ too much, and he sat down. Leaves and twigs crunched and squeaked under him. He groaned. He hadn't gotten very far. Although, he also couldn't tell how long he had been walking. It might not have been very long.

As long as he was sitting down, he might as well try his phone again. He pulled it out. The clock said 11:34. There was a teeny, tiny, sliver of a bar. He held it up, finger hovering over the button that would speed-dial Jazz. It wasn't any higher. He sighed, and brought it close again. If it didn't matter, he shouldn't strain himself. he hit the button.

He really needed this to work.

The phone picked up on the first ring.

 _"Danny,"_ came Jazz's voice, staticky and distorted, but _there, "thank God. Where... you? Where have you been?"_

"I'm in the trees," said Danny, "the woods, um." He rubbed his eye. "I need you to pick me up."

 _"Okay,"_ said Jazz. _"I'm on my way out. Where in the w...s are you? Like, t... ark, or what?"_

"Outside of town," said Danny. "Um. Southwest. Yeah. I think I have a concussion."

 _"Who did it?"_ asked Jazz, tone vengeful.

"I don't know. I think I just ran into this thing. This wall thing. This... Thing. That thing. You know. The thing." He hoped Jazz knew what he was talking about.

_"The GIW shield?"_

"Yeah, I guess. Why's it there?" The question was highly plaintive. He didn't like it. He didn't want it there. It shouldn't be anywhere near _his town._ His eyes flared green and a spike of pain went through his head. He whimpered, forcing down his ghost. He had to focus on healing, first. Sam, and Tuck, and Jazz always said he had to make sure he was healthy, otherwise he'd wouldn't be able to help anyone else.

 _"I'll explain when I get you,"_ she said. _"Try to see if you... get to a road, or-. How much... ttery do you have?"_

Danny looked. "Like, half."

_"Okay, do you think you're in... park?"_

"Which?"

_"Canny Park?"_

"Maybe? I'm around there, I guess?"

_"Okay. Stay where you are... now, I'll call you once I... there."_

"Okay. Thank you, Jazz."

_"No problem, stay safe."_

He brought the phone down away from his ear, and settled in to wait.


	2. Chapter 2

It was the phone ringing that woke Danny up this time. He hadn't meant to fall asleep. He vaguely remembered that you weren't supposed to fall asleep when you had a concussion. Or was that different now? He didn't know.

Before he answered the phone, he checked the time. 12:12. Okay. That was a time. Yeah. He couldn't remember what it had been before.

"Jazz?" he said, into the phone.

 _"I'm at the park with Sam and Tucker,"_ she said. _"Tell me if you hear this."_

There was a pause. "Hear what?"

 _"We haven't done it yet. Come on, Tucker,"_ she prompted, words clipped. Then a long, low _blaaaaaaaaaaat_ came out of the phone speaker.

"Was that an air horn?"

_"Yeah. Did you hear it?"_

"Only through the phone. Let me put the phone down, and do it again."

_"Sure."_

This time, Danny was able to hear a very faint, echo-y _blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat._ What followed was a game of hot and cold. Danny knew he wasn't being as helpful as he could have been. He kept getting distracted by the pain in his own head, and forgetting how loud the previous _blaaat_ _s_ had been. Eventually, however, his friends had found him.

Normally, he would have zoned out at that point, but apparently he looked a lot worse than he'd thought. He hadn't even noticed the copious amount of blood and ectoplasm matting his hair and staining his clothes, or his broken arm. But then, concussions were brain injuries, and brain injuries could make things weird.

Jazz had brought the first aid kit, the big, green one. The one that had stuff for both humans and ghosts. It had a bunch of weird, Ghost Zone things in it, including vials of purified, energized ectoplasm, and ectoplasm patterned with Danny's ectosignature. Jazz made Danny drink one of each. He didn't want to. He couldn't possibly be that badly off. The former was sort of like drinking an unholy combination of caffeine and Nyquil. The later always made him think of drinking blood, even though it was sweet, and tasted absolutely nothing like blood.

They took turns carrying him. It was probably a good thing that he was supernaturally light, even as a human, but he could have done _some_ walking. Probably. The ectoplasm was making him feel like a hyper noodle.

When they got to Jazz's car, they laid him down on the floor in front of the back seat. Sam got down so that his head was resting in her lap, and Tucker got into the front seat.

"Why?" he asked.

"So people looking in won't see you," said Jazz. She looked over the back of the seat as she got in. "The GIW have set up watching posts."

"Everything is very rapidly going to dystopian hell," said Sam. "No one's been able to get in or out of the shield since last night. We can't even call people outside."

"We'd honestly kinda hoped that you had gotten out, dude," said Tucker. "When you didn't come home, the options were either that, or, well. You know."

"Uh," said Danny. He was having some trouble processing. He _didn't_ know, actually, but he suspected that when it came to him, it would keep him up at night.

The drove on, Danny zoning in and out, Sam trying to fix up some of his more superficial wounds, Jazz and Tucker talking quietly in the front seat. They got closer and closer to home, but then turned, going away.

"Where're we going?" asked Danny, confused. "I thought we were going home."

"We can't go home," said Jazz.

"Why?"

"The GIW have practically taken it over. We have a room at the Grand Julian. Thirteenth floor."

"You know," said Tucker, "the one that doesn't exist because Amity Park is where physics goes to take vacations."


End file.
